Agriculture in the 21st Century

As a result of global change, agricultural systems are undergoing dramatic transformations — environmental, economic and social. Global environmental change is altering the climate, land and water resources, and biodiversity which form the foundation of agricultural productions systems. At the same time globalization is transforming production, trade and consumption though socio-economic and technological changes.

The challenges of food security and globalization in the twenty-first century will require integrated social, economic, technological, and environmental analysis of the issues and knowledge at the local, national, and international levels to design and implement policies that enable farmers to produce food sustainably and empower consumers to make choices regarding food that is affordable, nutritious and healthy, and safe.

IIASA’s study on Agriculture in the 21st Century (AG21) is concerned with a medium- and long-term assessment of the evolution and the social, economic and environmental prospects for food and agriculture at the national, regional and global levels. IIASA’s integrated agro-ecological zone (AEZ) model and a regionalized general equilibrium model of world food economy provides the basis of scenario design and assessments, including policy analysis related to future demographic and economic development pathways and of the potential impacts of climate change on production, prices, trade and consumption and an assessment of the scale and location of risks of hunger.

Agriculture in the 21st Century

The Challenges of Agriculture.

  • Social, environmental, economic, and global changes – climate change and natural resource degradation.
  • Human Rights – food, water and health, MDGS.
  • Food systems and globalization, WTO.
  • Food security and hunger, nutrition and obesity; food safety.
  • Agriculture and rural poverty.

Issues: Main drivers of the agriculture in the 20th and the 21st centuries similarities and differences; rapid changes in agricultural science and technology; consumption patterns and nutrition, environmental, degradation and pollution, global changes – social, economic, and environmental; international food trade and marketing.

Policy Focus: Food security and healthy nutrition

Population and Demography.

  • Growth, urbanization, rural spatial distribution, ageing.

Issues: Changing profiles of social, demographic, economic, educational processes, transition to urbanized lifestyle, urbanization. Increase of disparities, poverty, unhealthy nutrition, hunger and obesity, differential vulnerability of populations and ecosystems.

LUC Spatial Analysis:

  • Population and Food production imbalances.
  • Differentially vulnerable rural poverty and agricultural incomes.
  • Differentially vulnerable agricultural ecosystems.
  • Future Rural-Urban food demand and production scenarios (3 Scenarios - low, intermediate and high).

Policy Focus: Rural and urban population, human capital and education.

Agricultural Science and Technology.
Traditional knowledge and breeding; green revolution; GMO and biotechnology; public and private research; patenting; agricultural knowledge systems.

Issues: Science and technology: Traditional knowledge and breeding.
Technological progress; changing and increasing consumption patterns and lifestyles;
To meet demands – new technologies in agriculture; GMO and biotechnology; antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, green revolution, marginalization of lands, land pricing and tenure, etc.; science and technology – risks, safety and benefits.
Efficient, effective, and sustainable use of land, water (rainfed, ground, and irrigated), agro-biodiversity resources.

LUC Spatial Analysis: Potential environmental constraints to food production and assessment of targeting new agricultural science including biotechnology; food commodities nutrient fortification, agricultural science and technology for adaptation and mitigation; crops, livestock, fisheries.

Policy Focus: National and international agricultural research systems; private and public sector research; patenting.

Agro-Ecology – Natural Resources and Global Environment Change.

  • Land, Water, biodiversity, agro-biodiversity, forests.
  • Crops, Livestock, Fish, Bio-energy.
  • Degradation, pollution, stress and scarcity.
  • Related Annex 1: AEZ Methodology, database and assessment.

Issues - Agro-ecology: Rapid technological growth, urbanization, increased demands – degrading resources, intergenerational equity. Need for integrated assessment of land and water resources under alternative scenarios of demographic, economic, environmental, and technological futures; need for robust strategies. Risks of environmental degradation, pollution, land and water scarcity, climate change (and variability/extreme events). Uncertainty about consequences, costs, burden sharing, etc. Need for strategies and mechanisms to ensure sustainable long-term developments; Need for risk-based strategies induced by social, demographic, economic, environmental heterogeneities of properties and processes at geographic locations, downscaling methodology; AEZ Methodology, database and assessment of strategies that would ensure long-term sustainability.

LUC Agro-ecological Spatial Analysis: Assessment of environmental changes and impacts on food production – water stress areas (rainfed and irrigated), land scarce areas, pressures on forest areas, arid and semi arid areas, Livestock systems (pastoral, intensive and mixed); Bio-energy and crop competition; Fish (marine and Aquaculture ??); climate change agricultural adaptation and mitigation (carbon sinks, emission trading, GGI etc.

Policy Focus : Agriculture and environmental sustainability (land, water, biodiversity)

Agricultural economy: Globalization and Sustainable Development.

  • National and international agricultural policies
  • Trade and tariffs, subsidies, WTO Reforms.
  • Economic vulnerability
  • Related Annex 2: BLS methodology, data base and assessment.

Issues - Agricultural economy and development: Globalization processes, induced transformations and reforms in agricultural markets, National and International Agricultural policies, investment, and progress, Trade and tariffs, Subsidies, WTO reforms, etc. Long-term perspectives, need for economic and financial planning mechanisms under risks. …Need for spatially-explicit, integrated socio-economic-ecological-demographic models. Robust strategies that would reduce socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities.

LUC Agro-economic spatial analysis: International food distribution and prices; global and regional Impacts of crop failures in major producer and consumer regions; impacts of subsidy and trade reforms; impacts and costs of climate change-options and costs of adaptation and mitigation

Policy Focus: WTO agricultural reforms, international food trade and prices, national food security policies, eradicating rural poverty and hunger.

Spatial Ecological-Economic-Demographic Analysis.
Methodology and global resource data base; resource use: land, water, organic and non-organic inputs, biodiversity and agro-biodiversity; agricultural science and technology; food production/consumption patterns: national, regional and global.

Issues to Integrated ecological-Economic Analysis: Demand for food, consumption patterns; Assessment of grain production and import-export potentials and needs (under alternative socio-economic, demographic, climate change scenarios taking into account inherent risks and uncertainties); Livestock assessment (under alternative scenarios), livestock production potentials (intensification, other technologies – gene, food conversion, antibiotics, growth stimulators, etc.). Associated risks – human, livestock, environmental, natural resources, and climate change impacts. Property ownership (on land, livestock farms, water, services, …). Interactions between the systems, incentives to cooperate; economy of scales – costs and benefits (small versus large farmers and increasing international commercialization of agriculture); who pays for risks – international and intergenerational; Need for medium and long-term horizons in planning; integrated spatially-explicit analysis accounting for socio-economic, demographic, environmental and resource heterogeneities.

LUC Spatial Food Security and Nutrition Analysis: Food deficit and food surplus. Countries – competitiveness and regional integration towards food security and sustainable agricultural development; adaptation and mitigation options, costs, and burden sharing.
 
Policy Focus: Spatial food security, rural poverty, and environmental sustainability.

Decision-making and Policy Action: Food Security for all.
Social, economic, environmental sustainability: Options and policies.

  • National, Regional, international food systems: Options and policies.

Potential target audiences:

  • IPCC: Impact of climate change on agriculture in various countries – adaptation and mitigation options (beyond the temperate and tropical areas 3rd assessment).
  • World Bank: Focus on agricultural science and technology. Future environmental constraints due to global change; food fortification strategies for the poor.
  • FAO – Long Term options for food and agricultural development; Hunger and Food Security policies.
  • UNEP- Environmental considerations of agricultural impacts on land, water, and biodiversity (GEO 4)…agriculture being the largest user of ecosystems.
  • UN: Millennium development Goals (Hunger, Rural Poverty and Environmental Sustainability) to 2015 and beyond.
  • G8: Focus on Africa – Agriculture as the foundation for social and economic development.
  • IUCN/WWF – Climate change impacts on environmental resources and consequences on biodiversity and designation of protected areas (extending AEZ beyond crops to include natural vegetation).
  • Developing Countries: An integrated ecologic-economic planning methodology for food security policies and sustainable agricultural development.

Responsible for this page: Elisabeth Kawczynski
Last updated: 16 Oct 2009
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